PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

The words in this blog headline capture my views, ones I never thought I would render — turning my back on a member of the media, given my own background as a newspaper reporter.

But that’s just what CNN’s Jim Acosta deserves – a turned back.

He and President Donald Trump are, to use an image, birds of a feather. Both like to preen before the camera as they try to gain what they consider to be the high ground, no matter its depth.

Make no mistake, a free press is not at stake in the back and forth between Trump and Acosta. Smart journalists will act like grown-ups as they assertively cover the news or opine on its effects. They won’t be affected by scurrilous public officials like Trump who try to make it difficult for them to do their jobs.

Acosta made news recently because the White House took away his White House media access card because of his over-the-top conduct in a presidential press conference. He refused to stick with one question, then would not give up the microphone in order to pass it on to other questioners.

After a few days, the White House had to restore the pass when a court issued a preliminary ruling saying that President Trump had no authority to revoke it.

There will be those who contend that Acosta got cross-wise with Trump’s White House because he, Acosta, disagreed with Trump. And perhaps there may be a germ of truth there because we all know Trump cannot tolerate dissent because he thinks he always is the smartest person in the room, even, in this case, smarter than Acosta.

Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn went on record this week, with this headline, “A CNN suit claiming a constitutional right to a press pass will inevitably backfire.”

McGurn continued.

“Nobody contests Jim Acosta’s right to be a jerk in front of a TV camera.”

“In the federal courts, however, Acosta and his employer, CNN, are now arguing that Donald Trump owes him a White House stage, as well. Taking away his hard pass, the claim goes, violates both First Amendment speech rights and Fifth Amendment guarantees of due process. What Acosta’s cheerleaders don’t seem to appreciate is that elevating a government pass into a constitutional fight will prove a loser in the long run, especially for television outlets such as CNN.

“Even the judge who issued a temporary restraining order Friday that restored Acosta’s pass said he was ruling narrowly and wasn’t pretending to adjudicate the First Amendment claims. David Rivkin, a constitutional lawyer who has served in the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office, calls Acosta’s legal case ‘patently absurd’ and notes that, while valuable, a White House pass is not a matter of constitutional right but of a sensible accommodation.

“To believe otherwise would mean that he (Acosta) is entitled to his White House pass, to travel with the president, to be able to participate in White House press conferences and to be able to pose questions to White House officials and that none of these policies, including being able to pose questions, can be changed without some form of due process,” McGurn wrote, quoting Rivkin.

Based on my background – including as a journalist and as a lobbyist – I have mixed emotions about press conferences.

If they are handled with honesty and aplomb on all sides – including those who ask questions and those who answer them — then they provide useful access to top government officials. But, as in the case of Acosta, those asking the questions may pose too many in a row, seemingly opting for the limelight instead of displaying decorum. At that point, usefulness goes away.

Back many years ago, when I worked for many years for the late Oregon Governor Vic Atiyeh, press conferences were a means to an end – the end being the Atiyeh’s “availability” to be questioned.

Victor, as we called the governor when we were not in public, didn’t much like “pressers,” but he handled the task with skill. He knew he was “making himself available to the media.” He much preferred one-on-one interviews, but there was not enough time for that to be the only access to Atiyeh, who, by the way, 35 years ago or so, was the last Republican governor in Oregon.

Back to the White House and Acosta.

In this case, we have two people competing for the upper hand, with neither appearing to give an inch.

It helps to remember that the press corps works at the White House out of mutual convenience. The physical presence is particularly crucial for television news. The illusion of intimacy and authority conveyed by filming inside the White House grounds is why each network has a camera stationed on the little strip on the driveway leading to the West Wing.

Imagine what it would mean if TV reporters had to broadcast from outside the fence. This would be what McGurn called “the nuclear option.” And if it were to go down this path, the Trump White House would certainly make itself look besieged and as if it had something to hide, which, of course, may actually be true.

McGurn posits that there are a number of responses that would render Acosta’s restored pass a hollow victory for the White House press. Trump, for example, could simply stop calling on Acosta and others from major media outlets. Or, he could exercise his own speech rights and not hold any press conferences at all.

Or, he could do something he raised Sunday in an interview with Fox News, which is to turn off the cameras that show the reporters. This echoes an idea floated by the former press secretaries for both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

This wouldn’t do anything to stop the hot-dogging at pressers featuring the president. It would, however, kill the incentive for showboating at the daily briefings. Again, it is the television press that stands to lose most, especially if Trump were to couple moving daily briefings off camera with holding few or no press conferences himself.

As for the White House, McGurn says it too has incentives to reconsider how best to handle the Acosta situation. “It might start by recognizing Acosta’s arrogance and narcissism as a gift. However much President Trump may accuse the ‘fake news media’ of bias and rail against its unfairness, this pales next to the public preening spectacle of Acosta himself, a living, breathing example of why so many Americans don’t trust reporters to tell the truth.

“In this sense, the White House might be wiser to keep Acosta exactly where he is. Why not, for example, have the president tell Acosta, ‘Jim, you can ask as many questions as you like’ and allow him to turn the press conferences into “The Jim Acosta Hour”? Then, see how much support Acosta enjoys among other White House reporters who have good questions they don’t get to ask because CNN’s correspondent hogged the mike.”

So, in the end, I’d say let Acosta be himself, let nobody contest his right to be a jerk in front of a TV camera.

Or, to, to put it another way, let two jerks – Trump and Acosta — be themselves. They deserve each other.